Form of a Story: Portal 2
by Naddalemur4realzdistime
Summary: Portal 2 in the form of a story. I intend to record the entire game here. So far I'm up to the betrayal. Read, please! I DON'T OWN PORTAL!
1. Prologue

**Alright, I just wanna say that I intend to go through with this and record the entire game in the form of a story. Also, the chapters will be much longer than this little prologue. Now, READ!**

**Prologue**

**_July 2_****_nd_****_, 2015_**

_"Good morning! You have been in suspension for [FiFtY] days. In compliance with state and federal regulations, all Aperture Science testing canditates must blahblahblah…" The young woman's eyes snapped open. Confused, she looked around and sat up. The woman was lying in a bed in what looked like a cheap motel room. That bed felt like a stone, she thought. Then the voice of the annoyingly cheerful Aperture Spokesperson began telling her to do something, but in her current state she couldn't make it out._

_"Y.. ill… a… zzer. Whe… he…" She shook her head vigorously and heard the words more clearly this time. "When you hear the buzzer, look down at the floor." She complied with this, and obeyed when told to look at the floor, at a picture, and she paid the most attention she could to the classical music. She didn't really want to lie down back on the bed, but a look through the window showed that exiting the room would lead to her falling to her death._

_With a sigh, she laid herself back in bed and drifted into artificial sleep immediately._

This was the last thing Chell would to for roughly three million years.


	2. The Courtesy Call

**Chapter One**

**The Courtesy Call**

**August 7****th****, the year 3000015**

"Good morning! You have been in suspension for [999999999999…." Chell awoke once again to the sound of the Announcer. She heard him say how long she'd been under – it made her uneasy because she didn't know if it was the truth or just a malfunction. The spokesperson began to speak again, but was interrupted by a knock at the door and a British voice. "Hello? Anyone in there?" The voice said.

Tentatively, Chell opened the door. Standing (or rather, hanging) in front of her was a sphere, about the size of her head, who was made entirely out of metal. It was made up of layers, so to speak, of metal that allowed it to look around. It had a blue optic and was strangely good at making expressions on its face for a robot with nothing but an eye and some lids to go with it.

"AHH!" the robot said in its masculine British dialect. "You look TERRIB –" he stopped himself from going any further and changed tact. "Good, actually, looking pretty good!" Chell sighed – she knew what the robot was going to say – and looked at herself. It was true - the top half of her orange jumpsuit had sagged off of her and the sleeves had wrapped themselves around her waist, the tank top she had under the suit (not to mention her whole body) was covered in dirt and grime, and she could actually feel her hair sticking out in all directions.

"Who are you? My name's Wheatley, so you know. Before we – ah – get too far could you introduce yourself?" Chell remained silent, and tried to convey that she was unable to speak with hand movements. Wheatley didn't understand, though, and stared at her concernedly. He moved himself over Chell's bed (the young woman noticed that Wheatley moved around using a rail connected to the ceiling) and cleared his metaphorical throat before speaking.

"It is true that most test subjects do experience some, er, cognitive deterioration after a few months in stasis. Now, you've been under QUITE a bit longer, so, you may have, a VERY minor case, of serious brain damage," Wheatley said carefully. "Now, don't be alarmed, but, but if you ARE alarmed, try to hold on to that feeling, as that is the proper response, to being told, you have brain damage."

Chell stared at him, slightly alarmed, but she nodded her head slightly to indicate for him to go on. Continuing with gusto, the robot said, "Do you understand? Do you know what I'm saying? Just – just say 'yes' if you understand."

Annoyed that this metal ball refused to understand that she was mute, she jumped in the air in frustration. Wheatley interpreted this as a response. "Well, erm, that wasn't really talking, so to speak, so, just, just say 'apple'. Come on. Simple word. Apple." He rolled the word around in his mouth. Chell was so annoyed with him she refused to speak. Before Wheatley could speak again, however, the sound of the Announcer, still amazingly cheerful, broke in. "Please prepare for emergency evacuation," the happy recording said as an alarm broke out.

"Umm, okay, y'know what, that's close enough," the panicked robot said, and he rose up into a hole in the ceiling. Suddenly, everything started shaking. With a start, Chell realised the entire room was moving.

She felt one of the walls, already unstable from spending 9999999 days degrading, buckle under the pressure as the room, apparently being steered by Wheatley, crashed into something. The wall panels fell off, revealing that they were in an enormous labyrinth of storage boxes, each one filled with the corpse of a long-dead test subject.

"Alright, I wasn't supposed to tell you this," Chell's talkative driver shouted, "But I'm in pretty hot water right now!" Chell briefly wondered whether or not the room would survive the trip to wherever they were heading.

"Of course when the power went out, they stopped waking up the bloody test subjects! How am I supposed to do my job when She isn't?" Wheatley shouted in frustration. "And who do you think the management's going to blame, huh, when they come in here and find ten thousand flippin' vegetables!?"

"I was trying to do what I'm supposed to, but, oooh, nooo, they had to -" Wheatley's jabbering was cut off by the sound of creaking metal as he knocked a storage room off the top of a towering stack of the things, causing the whole pile to tumble into the abyss below. "See, there, I hit that one," He said, sounding slightly guilty. "I've just gotta concentrate," he grunted, focusing on steering the cheap motel room safely through the maze. Meanwhile, Chell was focusing on not falling through the by now completely destroyed walls as the room, held together only by a few mangled metal beams, lurched haphazardly from side to side.

After what seemed like a lifetime, the room slowed down. Chell stopped to take a breath, but hardly got a chance to inhale before the room made a sharp turn sideways, turning to face a gap in the wall of rooms that may or may not have fit the wreck Chell was trying to balance on now. "Do you think I'll make it through?" Wheatley shouted, but he didn't wait for the response that wouldn't have come anyway. The room sped forward, and, it turned out, did not fit in the gap. That wasn't a problem, though, because Wheatley had so much acceleration that the wall split apart on impact, allowing them through.

They continued onward through the never-ending maze, and shortly arrived at a wall, with the words "DOCKING STATION 005" clearly painted in large yellow letters on it. "Good news!" Wheatley yelled. "I think this is a docking station! You may want to hold on to something!" He proceeded to "dock" the room. However, it was obvious that the blue-eyed robot had no idea how to dock. He rammed into the wall as hard as he could, causing a large crack to run throughout the barrier. "Okay, more news: that was NOT a docking station!" Wheatley said, paying no attention to the "DOCKING STATION 005" sign. "I'm going to have to attempt a manual override on this wall! Just a suggestion; this time you probably should hold on to something!" Chell obeyed as fast as she could, but it wasn't fast enough to avoid all of the impact. It sent chunks of docking station and storage wall flying off their owners.

"Alright, one more hit should do it!" Wheatley yelled. "Seriously, do hold on to something this time!" And with that, he smashed into the wall with enough force to send an elephant to space. Chell flew backwards onto, in a moment of extreme luck, the only wall that was still any degree of intact. Afterward, the wall could no longer be called 'intact'. Actually, none of the motel room could be called intact: the entire thing had basically disintegrated. Chell climbed onto one of the safer piles of rubble and waited for the smoke to clear.


	3. Technical Difficulties

**Chapter 2**

**Technical Difficulties**

Coughing, Chell stood up and faced Wheatley. He was still trying to rearrange his senses. _That was some crash,_ Chell thought. _I thought we were done for… _Wheatley interrupted her thoughts. "Ah! You're okay! Well, you're in…" Chell tuned him out. Her spherical acquaintance was lovable, but that didn't mean he never got annoying. She looked around the wrecked room and realized that the place hadn't looked beautiful even before it had been sashed into. It was full of plants and the walls were rusted. She looked down, noticing a large gap in the ground preventing her from crossing.

Chell attempted to jump over it, but accidentally leaped right into a pole (none too softly, either). She fell backwards with a grunt of pain and felt glass shattering around her. Next thing she knew, she was flat on her back staring up at the broken ceiling. She got up and saw that the room she was in was uncomfortably familiar. It was the room she'd been first woken up in, god knows how long ago, by that – that – by that thing. The memory of the flat but charming female voice that told her that her specimen had been processed, making all sorts of false promises only to ultimately try to kill Chell, was enough to send a shudder down the young woman's spine.

The room was not without change, though: the strange-looking stasis bed was gone, and the toilet was completely devoid of water. The radio seemed to be playing the same tune, but with different instruments and, instead of classical rock, the song was being played in a more jazzy style. The most relieving change, though, was that it was the announcer, and not Her (the name Chell called her enemy), that told Chell to step through the portal into testing.

Entering the first test, she remembered it, too. It was a white room, with a door, a large cube, and a red button big enough for Chell to sit on. The announcer began to spell out the basics of the test, but she needed no information. She picked up the cube and placed it on the button. The door refused to open for a moment, but then, with the sound of protesting metal and electrical sparks, it pried itself open so that Chell could pass. After a few more simple tests, which Chell breezed through, she came to a room with a broken wall. She heard a familiar sound – her British companion – and turned to see him inside the broken wall. "Hey!" he said. "Good job getting this far! Now, there's something we'll need to escape – a portal gun! There should be one on the pedestal over there, could you check?"

Obediently, Chell walked to the pedestal, which was empty. "Umm…" Wheatley said, out of ideas. "Could you – maybe-" But he was cut off when the ground under Chell shook audibly and fell apart under her. The pedestal was swallowed up as the floor transformed into a sinkhole. Chell didn't manage to get out of reach, either, before she was pulled downward along with panels of moonstone.

Chell awoke floating in dirty water. Wheatley was shouting something at her in the distance, but she couldn't make it out. With a sigh, she slogged through the grimy goop and eventually came to a stairway with, in another stroke of luck, the portal gun's familiar shape lying on it. Chell picked up the tool, and, rather cheerfully considering the circumstances, used the portals to climb back up to the tests. She managed to get all the way up, and was entering the next test when Wheatley found her again.

"Hey!" the AI said. "Oh, brilliant, you've got the gun! That just goes to show that the people with brain damage are the real heroes in the end." Rolling her eyes, Chell portaled over to him and stood under him.

"Alright," Wheatley said, suddenly serious. "I've got something pretty heavy to lay on you here. They said, when they made me, that I should never, EVER, disengage from my management rail," he said, motioning toward the rail, connected to the ceiling, that he moved along. "However, we've got no choice here, so, on the off chance that I'm not dead the moment I pop off this thing, I'd like you to catch me. On three. No, no, three just gives you too much time to think about it – on one then. ONE!" he said, and with a click he fell to the ground, yelling, "CATCH ME CATCH ME CATCH ME!" Chell was not fast enough, though, and Wheatley banged to the ground.

"I… am not dead! I'm not dead!" He shouted exuberantly. "Hahhahahaha!" Chell picked him up, but she didn't know where to go next. "Oh – plug me into that stick on the wall over there and I'll show ya something," he said. Chell obeyed, but Wheatley said, "Oh. Um. Could you please turn around? I can't do it if you're watching." Chell turned, rolling her eyes, and after several beeps, she heard, "Okay, you can turn back now!" she rotated to face him, and he had opened up a secret panel. "BAM! Okay, now please pick me up." He said, and she did as told.

She walked through the panel and continued onward through the path it showed her. Wheatley was rambling endlessly, but she tuned him out again and headed forth. Suddenly, though, Wheatley said something that sliced through Chell's mind like a sword. "To escape, we're going to have to go through Her chamber."


	4. The Awakening

**Chapter Three**

**The Awakening**

Chell froze. _Her, _she thought, _Wheatley just said Her!_ She didn't remain frozen for long, though – her tenacity level was record-breakingly high. Wheatley's, however, was not, and he remained stock-still as his words sank in. Chell moved forward, determined, and Wheatley voiced his fears right before they entered Her chamber. "Alright, I'm gonna lay my cards on the table: I don't wanna do it. I don't want to go in, DO- Oh, she's off, she's off," He said, the relief evident in his tone of voice. But Chell wasn't paying attention.

Lying on the floor was what looked like at first glance to be a heap of scattered metal. But Chell knew the difference. This wasn't a heap of metal – it was a heap of arch enemy. The only sign that this thing had once been alive, though, was the dim yellow light coming from a crescent-shaped head large enough for Chell and Wheatley to sit comfortably on top of.

Uneasily, Chell walked past the pile. Even Wheatley was silent. When he did speak, it was in a whisper, telling her to go down the stairs. After a little ways, they came to a door, hanging ajar. Inside was a cylindrical room, about as wide as a broom closet but as tall as a two-story house, and the walls were covered entirely with levers. "The main breaker room," said Wheatley. "Try to find a switch that says 'escape pod'. Don't touch anything else, just escape pod." After a minute of searching, Wheatley said, "Kinda dark, isn't it? Here; plug me in and I'll light things up." Chell plugged him in and the lights clicked on.

"Let there be light!" Wheatley said triumphantly. "That was, er, God. I was quoting God." In the new brightness, Chell looked, but had just enough time to read one switch before the floor began to turn. "Ahh! Turning! Ominous… but we'll be fine, as long as it doesn't start moving up," He said, as the floor began to move upward. "Oh! It's… It's moving up!" Wheatley said trying to keep calm. He was doing pretty well, too, until the announcer said, maybe a little less cheerfully than normal, "Power-up initiated."

Wheatley lost control, rambling and talking too fast to understand, but Chell just stood still. Completely still. And the floor rose up to ground level just in time for the two to watch the awakening.

A particularly large piece of metal was connected to the ceiling as heavy-duty tubes and cords rejoined. Newly reborn electrical currents sent energy coursing through wires, as the wires, in turn, connected to other wires and sent energy to them. Rusted joints forced themselves to move back into their original position, and all kinds of wires bound together indiscriminate hunks of steel that were useless apart, but irreplaceable together. What looked like a long fan belt snapped back in position again, holding down some sort of clock device, and a couple of small plants and animals were ejected forcefully from what had been their home for generations. The pieces of metal seemed to come alive, and they thrashed about. Finally the last few wires snaked over the rest of the body and connected themselves to the crescent shaped head. The head lifted itself upward to stare at them, and the gray hole in the center of the face suddenly beamed with a bright yellow light. GLaDOS was awake.

"Oh," GLaDOS said, in a voice with much more emotion than when Chell had last met her. "It's you." Her eyes narrowed vindictively as Wheatley said, "You know her!?" Ignoring the sphere, GLaDOS continued. "How have you been?" she said, as two claws picked up Chell and Wheatley. "I've been really busy being dead. You know, after you MURDERED ME!" the robot yelled, furious. Calming herself, she said, "We've both said things that ONE OF US is going to regret," she seethed. In an act of pure spite, she crushed Wheatley between two robotic fingers. "But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."

GLaDOS chuckled darkly. "I must say, if you went to all this trouble to wake me up, you must really love to test. I love it to. There's just one thing we have to take care of first." And with vindictive pleasure, she dropped Chell into the open incinerator.


	5. The Incinerator Room

**Alright, before you begin reading, lemme tell ya that I took some... er... creative liberties with this chapter. :p I'm probably gonna do that a lot: making events that don't really happen in the games occur. Why? One reason is to mess with the characters' dialogue and emotions, imagining what Chell would feel like instead of somebody just playing a game, and giving Chell a sort of personality. The main reason, though, is that wouldn't it be boring just to hear about Chell testing? Unless you want your brain to leak out of your skull with boredome, I have to add in some interesting things. Anyway, direct your pity towards these turtles migrating to a colder climate in Holland - I mean, Chell falling into lava.**

**Chapter IV**

**The Incinerator Room**

Falling. All of Chell's senses were concentrated on the fact that she was falling, falling endlessly. She could feel with absolute clarity the wind rushing past her as she plummeted toward her imminent doom. Every time she hit a curve or oddly angled pipe, it sent shivers through her body. She could hear the wind in her ears, see with enough clarity to pinpoint the exact location where the tunnel ended, and smell the acrid scent of smoke. However, something hit her: shouldn't she have already been burnt to a crisp? The height level of the lava had dropped severely since last time Chell had encountered the incinerator, and while the fiery fluid lowered, her hopes soared.

_Maybe I have a chance, _she thought, _maybe GLaDOS didn't mean for this to kill me anyway!_ Chell's theory was proven when a speedy metal claw pushed her out of the way as one side of the wall caved in. _I was right, _Chell mused, _GLaDOS doesn't want me dead. But why would - ? _she gasped as the realization struck her. GLaDOS wanted to put Chell through tests. _Frankly I would have preferred death, _she grimaced.

But then her thought was abruptly cut short as her head nocked into something hard and round. All went black.

For the third time this morning, Chell awoke from her stupor. She was facing a glass circle. No, wait – more than just a glass circle. A glass circle in the center of a crushed, dented ball that had obviously seen better days. Chell frowned as she looked at the carcass of her friend. Though their friendship had been short-lived, the little talkative sphere had been a fun companion. _There's no such thing as 'fun' anymore, _she thought, and set out making a nest, a final resting place, for her old friend.

The loudspeaker crackled. "Ah. The incinerator room. Be careful not to trip on any pieces of my once-dead body." GLaDOS said. She was obviously still upset. Well, that was Chell's goal. She lingered alongside Wheatley's body for as long as possible so as to infuriate the AI.

Suddenly, with much squawking and ruffling of feathers, what looked like a huge black bird flew down from the unsteady, fire-ravaged rafters and carried of Wheatley's remains. Ignoring Chell's crestfallen expression, GLaDOS said, "There. Now you have no excuses."

Chell trudged on, trekking over what was, in fact, the remains of GLaDOS' old body, infuriated. She knew that GLaDOS had almost certainly had nothing to do with this, but she was still mad at the AI. She had lost her only friend but that was nothing new. With a sigh, she looked down for the reassuring company of the only thing that had been with her throughout it all: the portal gun. But when she looked down, she saw it wasn't there.

She remembered: It had fallen down the elevator shaft when GLaDOS had first awakened! _Oooh, _she thought. She didn't know why she cared so much for an inanimate object. Then again, the Companion Cube was inanimate, and she literally LOVED that thing. She shook her head, frowning, and suddenly tripped over something.

She gave a grunt of pain and rolled over on the hot ground to see a portal gun. "Ah, I see you've found the duel portal device," said GLaDOS. Without a second thought, Chell grabbed the gun. "There's an entrance to the test chambers up ahead," the A.I. continued. "Use the gun to get there." Chell did as told, but vowed not to be so compliant later on. She vowed that when she was done with the infuriating mechanical killer, GLaDOS would regret ever having existed.


	6. The Cold Boot

**Chapter V**

**The Cold Boot**

After portal-ing throughout a series of hallways, Chell came to a door blocked by several fallen panels. "Oh, I'll get that," said the infuriating AI. "Wow, they really let this place go," GLaDOS mused as she lifted the fallen wall. Chell walked through the door. In the room was a simple laser beam and a laser beam catcher – Chell breezed through. The next room was inhabited by something new – a glass cube. "That's the Thermal Discouragement Beam Redirector Cube", crackled the loudspeaker on the wall. "I had just finished developing them when you had your little… _accident_." GLaDOS' anger was palpable. So was Chell's.

Many tests later, Chell was tired. Hungry. Weak. But above all, she was angry, and she was the type of person who only gave up if they were dead. So she trudged on, desperately in need of something that heartened her. Luckily, she got it. She entered the next chamber, and something caught her eye: a loose panel. Now, this was nothing new; The facility had all but fallen apart, and no matter how fast GLaDOS tried to repair things, there was always a loose wall panel or two. But this one was different because it wasn't trying to fix itself, it was just hanging there.

Curious, Chell walked over (the panel was at her eye level) to peer into the gap in the wall, but before she could get close enough, though, something poked its head out, or, more accurately, its whole body out. A maddeningly familiar metal ball with a big, glowing blue eye bumped into Chell, startled, and stared at her for a few seconds. Chell's reanimated friend looked much worse for wear; he was covered in scratches, dents, and bumps, and his lower eyelid appeared to be jammed in one position. However, before Chell could do anything to interact with him, Wheatley pulled himself back into the wall without a word.

As Chell thought about her companion being alive – maybe there was a chance they could escape after all! GLaDOS seemed to notice the happier expression on her enemy's face. She hadn't seen Wheatley, but happiness was not the intended effect on her prisoner. Her nemesis was experiencing a positive emotion, but hell hath no fury like an AI scorned, so GLaDOS set out to dampen Chell's euphoria.

Chell was distracted from her thoughts by a _plunk! _Sound beside her. She turned around and saw none other than the companion cube! Just as she grabbed it, though, it dissolved in her hands. As she stared at where it used to be, GLaDOS 'apologized', "Oh. Did I fizzle that before you could solve the test? I'm sorry." Another one hit the ground beside Chell, and as she picked it up, she could only hold it a moment before it, too, dissolved, accompanied by GLaDOS' smug voice. "Oh. No. I fizzled that one too." Chell glared angrily at the camera before picking up yet another one. "Oh well," GLaDOS mocked. "We have warehouses _full_ of the things. Absolutely worthless. I'm happy to get rid of them."

And on that note, GLaDOS left Chell with her thoughts and the test.

Throughout the next 10 chambers, GLaDOS continued to mock, insult, and generally make fun of Chell. Eventually, Chell tuned it out, but finally, after what seemed like days, something that GLaDOS said caught her attention. In the middle of GLaDOS' thinly hidden insults, Chell heard the word 'surprise'. Immediately Chell focused on the AI's words; if something was coming she needed to be prepared.

"… that I know you'll love," GLaDOS was saying. "I'll give you a hint: it involves two people who you haven't seen in a _long_ time. Chell shuddered. She knew what her enemy was implying, but she was sure it was not going to be a happy reunion with her family. She didn't know what it was, but she had no doubt it was something terrible.


	7. The Surprise

**Chapter VI**

**The Surprise**

**Oh, It's you. It's been a looonng time. How have you been? Yeah, I know, I haven't updated in a month or something. I've been pretty busy, but I hope I can stay on some kind of schedule. Anyway, I'm starving to death right now (haven't eaten in - *checks clock* - 7 hours) but I'm gonna finish this chapter before I grab me a sammich. Anyway, hope you like!**

"I bet you're really anxious about knowing what your surprise is, aren't you?"

Chell had to admit GLaDOS was right. Though GLaDOS had been "subtly" hinting that it was her parents, Chell knew that her enemy, being, well, _her enemy_, would never do something that had even the slightest chance of making Chell happy. Still, GLaDOS' prisoner was quite curious as to what it actually was. She had a little inkling at the back of her mind that GLaDOS was just using the surprise as a motivation method, like the cake, but she ignored it out of curiosity.

Chell passed into the next room without noticing, and suddenly, she was shrouded in darkness. "Initiating surprise in 3, 2, 1," GLaDOS said. Then the lights came on, and Chell could see she was in a small room, with nothing but a chair, a desk, and a small tube coming down from the ceiling. "Surprise!" GLaDOS said gleefully, accompanied by confetti raining down from the tube.

Chell looked around, confused. _Nothing? _GLaDOS gave a dry chuckle and began to say something, but Chell wasn't listening. The enormity of the situation was finally dawning on her. Everything felt completely hopeless. She was stuck, possibly for the rest of her life, in this living hell. There was nothing she could do without help, and GLaDOS was sure not to make the same mistakes as last time. Though Wheatley had talked to her once or twice, GLaDOS had almost certainly noticed him, and he kept on putting off their escape. For once in her life, she considered giving up.

_No,_ she thought, straightening up. _If I go out, I go out kicking and screaming, and I'm taking somebody with me. _Walking further to the next room, she continued on with testing. Then came a real surprise.

As she was balanced precariously on top of a bridge made of light, which in turn was hovering over a lake of deadly goo, the lights turned off, as well as the bridge. Chell fell **(lol, rhyme)** onto solid ground, barely missing the acidic liquid. "Hey," GLaDOS said, a hint of alarm creeping into her usually composed voice. "Who turned out all the lights?" Then, a wall panel opened, revealing none other than Wheatley.

"Hey, buddy," Wheatley drawled in a badly imitated American accent. "I'm speaking in an accent that is beyond her range of hearing!" "Look, metal ball," GLaDOS said, annoyed. "I _can _hear you." Wheatley quickly dropped the accent, yelling with his normal British voice, "Run! I don't need to do the voice, RUN!" Chell needed no encouragement. She ran through the open wall and onto a catwalk, in an odd place that seemed – different. It was like a vast cavern, crisscrossed with tubes carrying turrets, as well as many catwalks for human transport.

"COME ON! COME ON!" Wheatley yelled, pulling her back to the present. She followed the sphere along the catwalk as he led her away. "Run! Run!" he yelled over all the activity. "Okay, quick recap: we are escaping, okay? That's what's happening, we're escaping, you're doing great, just keep going!"

"So, uh, quick word about the future plans that I've got in store," he shouted back at her as they traveled, "We're gonna shut down her turret production line, turn off her neurotoxin, and then confront her. Again, though, for the moment, RUN!" His plan sounded reasonable enough, so Chell continued with her friend. Unfortunately, they were not far enough from GLaDOS yet. "The irony is you were almost at the last test," the evil AI broke in. "Here it is," she said as wall panels beside Chell opened to reveal a small test with a companion cube and a button. "Why don't you just do it? Trust me, it's an easier way out than whatever asinine plan your friend came up with."

"Oh – come on, what? How stupid does she think we are?" Wheatley scoffed. "Oh!" He shouted in warning as Chell slipped and fell of a light bridge onto a catwalk. "Just- keep moving, keep going!" Chell passed into a cramped room with a low roof. Suddenly, the walls came down around her. "AH!" Wheatley yelled. "What's going on in there!?" Chell heard the chilling sound of a turret. "Can you get out?" Wheatley yelled. Chell wasn't paying attention. She had just realized the whole room was filled with turrets.

Quickly, Chell escaped the turrets and came out onto the catwalk. "Oh, thank God you're alive!" Wheatley said. "Okay, follow me. Watch out for that turret!" he warned. As Chell ran, she could see, hear, and feel the building falling apart around her. "Hurry, she's bringing the whole place down!" Wheatley urged. "HURRY UP! HURRY UP! INTO THE LIFT!" he yelled as Chell dodged the falling debris and jumped into the elevator, turning around to see that she had just barely missed the colliding walls. She watched the catwalk crumble into pieces and fall into the bottomless pit. "I'll meet you on the other side!" Wheatley called out to her as the lift rose.


	8. The Template

**Chapter VII**

**The Template**

Stepping out of the lift, Chell found herself once again walking along the metal catwalks. Wheatley, always a few feet ahead, swung around to face her on his rail. "Okay, so first up, we have to disable the turret production line," he informed her. He turned back around, leading the way. "Well, of course, we have to find it first, so-" the core continud, before he was interrupted by a loud clicking noise. Chell didn't know if it was her imagination, but the room seemed darker.

"Wh-what's going on?" Wheatley frantically asked nobody in particular. The more clicks, and suddenly everything was dark. "Ah!" Wheatley shouted, somewhere ahead of Chell, who jumped in fright. "Oh- oh, the lights went off," her companion realized _(Took him long enough,_ Chell thought, irritated that she had let herself be frightened by the darkness).

"Oh- okay, I've got an idea," Wheatley informed Chell. "But it is bloody dangerous," he added warningly. Chell braced herself, closing her eyes (not that it made any difference) and covering her face. Wheatley gave another yelp, and Chell opened her eyes to find that a bright beam of light was exuding from his eye. "They told me," the core began, irritated and relieved at the same time, "that if I used my flashlight I would die! They told me that about everything!" He started off along the corridor, still lighting the way. "Why bother giving me this stuff if they don't want me to use it!" he continued. Chell rolled her eyes and followed her guide. "It's pointless! Mad!"

* * *

"Here's an interesting story," Wheatley said. Chell sighed. Her companion simply never stopped talking. "I almost got a job down here, in manufacturing. But guess who the foreman went with? Only an exact duplicate of himself. Nepotism. So instead I was stuck tending to all the smelly humans-" he stopped, noticing the look of shock on Chell's face."The-the, uh... sorry, that just slipped out," he apologized earnestly. "A bit insensitive, really. The smelly humans..." Chell nodded her head to show she forgave him. She had learned by now that all robots harbored some contempt towards humans, and at least this one was apologizing.

Finally, they arrived at the turret production line. It appeared to be a conveyer belt dotted with turrets. If a turret was detected to be defective, it was thrown into the incnerator beyond, but if not, it would pass to the next stage of turret production. "So," Wheatley began, "got any ideas? We need to sabotage the production line." Chell nodded vaguely, thinking. She looked up and saw beside her a small room with a turret inside. "That is the template turret," Wheatley informed her. "If a turret doesn't match, it gets chucked into the incinerator right there," he said, indicating the flame-filled hole that the defective turrets were launched into. Suddely, Chell felt the spark of inspiration. "Hey! Where are you going?" Wheatley called out as Chell ran out of the observation room.

Chell stopped at a conveniently placed catwalk right in front of the incinerater. After a few moments, a defective turret came flying toward her. She caught it deftly in her gun's prongs, then she took off back to Wheatley. "Oh, you're using one of the crap turrets!" he exclaimed when she reached him. "Brilliant! Okay, um, turn around, and I'll hack into the door," he said, indicating the locked barrier between them and the template. Dutifully, Chell tuned around. Hearing the alarming sound of glass shattering, she turned around to see that Wheatley had smashed the glass window on the door. "There we go, I've hacked it for you!" he said proudly.

Rolling her eyes, Chell swapped the template for the defective. The duo headed down the stairs, having succeeded in their first mission. Wheatley gave one last look at their handiwork. "I DON'T UNDERSTAAAAND!" a perfectly operational turret yelled as it was flung into the incinerator. "That was a great idea, really," he said uneasily, wheeling ahed if Chell on his rail, "But they can feel pain, you know." Chell looked back, alarmed; she didn't want to cause too much pain. "Not much, of course," Wheatley amended hastily, "But, you know, it's enough for them."

Once again, Chell rolled her gray eyes, and once again, Wheatley was oblivious.


	9. The Neurotoxin

Chapter** VII**

**The Neurotoxin**

**Hey guys, sorry in advance for the short chapter. The next one is titled The Betrayal (I think we all know what that means) and it'll be much longer.**

"Here we are, " Wheatley asserted. "The neurotoxin control room."

"Er- here's an idea," the blue core told Chell. " Why don't- I hack it, while you see if there's anything down the hall?" Chell nodded her head in response; this seemed agreeable. She headed further down the hall, leaving Wheatley in a small room with a control panel and not much else. She could vaguely hear him talking to himself about hacking, and most of it seemed certifably ludicrous. Then she turned to look off the edge of the railing and gasped.

Directly after the railing was an enourmous niche, inside of which there hung from the expansive cieling an impossibly vast gray container, with tubes connecting, circling, and coiling around it, tubes that Chell could stand up comfortably in. _These must be the neurotoxin containers!_ thought Chell. But how to disable them? She looked around the huge room and spyed two slowly moving slabs of portal surface. Maybe use those to get onto the wires? No, too dangerous, she decided. Once more she scanned for portal surfaces. She spotted another one, this time with a Discouragement Beam pointing its aptly named laser at the white, searingnit a little around the edges. Her eyes lit up and she placed a portal under the red ray of thermal energy. Then she placed a portal on one of the moving slabs and watched, smiling, as the beam's energy sliced through the tubes, releasing gas out into the open.

The announcer's calm, cheery voice cut throught the hiss of lethal gas. "Nuerotoxin levels at [FIFTY] percent." Chell smiled even wider; she hadn't been this succesful in a long moved her portal to the other moving white slab, making short work of the remaining tubes. Again the announcer's unsettlingly cheery demeanor cut in. "Warning. Neurtoxin levels at a dangerously unlethal low."

Suddenly Chell heard Wheatley yelling. Alarmed, she rushed back to him to find that a tube on the wall had begun sucking with unprecedented force. "Gah!" he yellee. So powerful was the suction that Chell felt herself leaving the ground. The powerful wind around her kept pulling and pulling until finally she flew towards the tube. She grabbed Wheatley, and the vaccuum ripped him off his management rail, sending them both tumbling into the transport tubes.


	10. The Betrayal

**Chapter IX**

**The Betrayal**

**Are you ready? It's the moment we've all been waiting for. While the first half is mainly an "action" scene, the second half focuses more on Chell's feelings. I'm going to send her on an emotional rollercoaster XD**

Chell felt a rush of air and her mouth made the soundless movement for a whoop of joy. The tubes were something she couldn't remember ever having experiencing – _fun._ Obviously Wheatley agreed. "Wow! This is amazing! Y'know, they told me I should never do this – the-they said, "DON'T DO THIS", - but, but I dunno what they were talkin' about, I'm lovin' this!" he yelled exuberantly. "Whale of a time!" he added.

Suddenly, though, the two were separated into different tubes. "Oh- no, I hadn't thought of this!" Wheatley yelled towards Chell. "Y- Here, you find her, and I'll catch up with you!" Chell wouldn't have obliged, but she was unable to do anything about it. Then, without warning, she was catapulted out of the tube into a small alcove in the wall. Rolling to lessen the impact, she peered at the other side.

It was another giant niche, only this time it was even bigger, if possible. It was so vast that Chell could not see the walls except the one she was poking her head through, and the floors were so far below she couldn't see anything that might have been down there either. The only visible portal surface was a small plate on the ceiling and the wall behind Chell. _Here goes nothing,_ Chell thought as she made the appropriate portals and jumped in.

She landed in a cramped room with no portal surfaces and one door. On the door was a sign, reading, _GLaDOS Emergency Shutdown and Cake Dispensary. _Okay, definitely a trap. _Still,_ Chell reasoned, _what choice do I have?_ She walked up to the door and pulled the handle, which promptly fell off – and then the door followed suit, simply _falling off the wall_ leaving no visible hallways or rooms it could have led to.

And then the walls began closing in.

A cold, unmistakably mechanical voice broke in through the rumble of moving steel. "Really, you let yourself get caught that easily?" GLaDOS mocked as the floors began to open up. "I had several other traps for when you got past this one. If I'd known you'd be this easy to capture I would have just tied a turkey leg to a string and dangled it over your head." Chell fell (Lol, there's that rhyme again) into a small glass room with naught but a toilet inside. The glass room was, itself, inside GLaDOS' chamber, and Chell found herself, once again, face to face with the AI. "Anyways, I hope you brought something stronger than a portal gun this time, because you're about to become the official _past-president_ of the Being Alive Club." GLaDOS deadpanned.

GLaDOS gave a dark chuckle. "Seriously though," she said, dropping several turrets around Chell's glass prison. "Goodbye." The moment was somewhat ruined, however, when the turrets, defective of course, combusted after a few dry _clicks _from their guns. "Oh, you were busy back there," GLaDOS observed, still surprisingly calm.

"Well, we could just stare at each other until somebody drops dead. But I have a better idea," GLaDOS informed Chell as a tube pressed itself against the glass. "It's your old friend: deadly neurotoxin. If I were you, I would take a deep breath, and hold it." But Chell thought contrary. She heard small grunts of pain and gasps of discomfort and Wheatley rolled out of the tube, shattering the glass and giving a small, "Hello!"

"I hate you so much." GLaDOS said, although both Chell and Wheatley ignored her. "WARNING: Central core is [EIGHTY] percent corrupt," the Announcer broke in. "That's funny," GLaDOS replied. "I don't feel corrupt. In fact, I feel pretty good." "Alternate core detected. To initiate a core transfer, place core substitute in the receptacle," the cheery voice continued as what looked like an outlet rose from the ground. "Core transfer?" GLaDOS groaned as Chell plugged Wheatley into the receptacle. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Substitute core. Are you ready to begin?" asked the Announcer. "Yes!" Wheatley replied confidently. "Corrupted core: are–" he began, but GLaDOS broke in. "NO!" "Oh yes She is," Wheatley said forcefully. "NONONONONONONONONO!"

Ima break in the middle and say: whoa! Only about halfway through the chapter and we got 722 words already! Anyways…

"Stalemate detected. Will a stalemate associate please press the Stalemate Resolution Button," the Announcer said, somehow turning a question into a statement. "Go press it!" Wheatley urged. "Do NOT press that button!" GLaDOS commanded as Chell headed towards the only visible button in the room. When Chell was just about to reach it, a panel from the floor popped up to block her. "Trust me," GLaDOS continued, a little desperately. "You do NOT want to press that button!" Chell quickly portaled directly in front of the button. Her finger reached down to press it…

And she pressed it.

"GAH!" GLaDOS yelled, thrashing about, until finally staying completely still. "Here I go!" Wheatley shouted cheerfully. "Wait-" he said as the receptacle lowered back into the floor, clearly having second thoughts. "What if this hurts? What if this really, really hurts? Oooh, I hadn't thought of that," he said nervously. "Oh believe me, it will," GLaDOS said spitefully. "Are- are you just saying that, or is it really gonna hurt? You're just saying that, aren't you? Or- no, no, you're not just saying that, it's really gonna hurt, won't it," he spluttered, rapidly swapping between mindsets. "Exactly how much pain are we talking abou-" he started to ask, before he interrupted himself with a drawn-out scream.

Then a makeshift wall rose up around GLaDOS' head, obscuring it. Chell heard GLaDOS' yells of protest through the wall. "Get your hands off me!" the mechanical villain yelled. "No! NO! NO, NO!" she screamed, before letting out a terrifying, agonized wail that spun and spiraled in octave and pitch, ending in an unsettlingly flat, mechanical moan.

Then the wall lowered and GLaDOS' head, disconnected from her body, was shoved to the ground. Replacing GLaDOS' head on the steel behemoth of a body was Wheatley.

"WOW!" he yelled euphorically, spinning around in his new body while the wall panels around him moved in a pleasant way. "Check me out, partner. We did it! I'm in control of the whole facility!" "WOAH-HO-HO! Would ya look at this," he continued as he spun around to face Chell. "Not too bad, eh? _GIANT _robot! Massive!"

"It's not just me, right?" he continued, still incessantly happy. "I am _bloody _massive, aren't I?" Chell gave him a look and motioned to the elevator shaft beside her. "Oh, yeah, right," he said. "The escape lift, I'll call it now." He sat concentrating for a moment, then, with a ding, said, "Lift called!"

Chell climbed into the lift, which had a glass door, and she couldn't help smiling. She was free. She, and Wheatley, were free. Unbidden, a grin broke out on her face. She was – and she hadn't thought this in a long time – happy. As a rule, happiness was never an emotion Chell had experienced in Aperture. She'd felt triumphant, relieved, excited – but never _happy. _"Man, I knew it would be cool to control everything," Wheatley said, slicing through Chell's thoughts. "But – WOW, this is cool!" He sent some turrets and a couple of cubes catapulting around the room. Chell watched, still grinning; Wheatley's infectious happiness made her go beyond joyous and into elated.

"And look!" Wheatley motioned euphorically. "I'm a bloody genius now!" He affected a mock serious pose, saying, "'Estas usando este software de traduccion de forma incorrecta. Por favor, consulta el manual.' I don't even know what I just said," he added. "But I can find out! Oh, sorry, yes, the lift, ye-yes, sorry." The elevator began rising.

Chell smiled wider and thought she felt a tear of joy. Her heart was soaring for herself, and for how obviously happy her friend was. "This body is amazing!" He yelled elatedly. Chell's mind began to playing snatches of happy music in her head, slowly rising in octave. Wheatley started laughing, joyously, because he was happy. Chell was happy. All was happy. A tear of joy welled up in Chell's left eye.

Then Wheatley's laugh changed.

It became louder, harsher… darker. It seemed almost maniacal, like a villain's evil laugh in a cartoon. And the music in Chell's head changed with it. It became louder, slower, more deliberate, and it began to lower in octave, with a dark underscore. The tear of joy traveling down Chell's face stopped, as if frozen.

"Actually," Wheatley said, and Chell could hear that something had left him. "Why do we have to leave right now? Do you have any idea how good this feels? I did this. Tiny little Wheatley DID THIS." The elevator moved back down to the floor. Then GLaDOS' cold voice pierced through the dark atmosphere (seriously; the lights were dimmed and seemed reddish, and even the walls were giving Chell a death glare): "You didn't do anything. She did all the work."

"Oh really?" Wheatley said angrily. "Is that what you think? Then maybe it's time I did something about it." A mechanical claw reached out of a pit below Wheatley and grabbed GLaDOS' huge, crescent-moon shaped head. "What are you doing?" GLaDOS asked, alarmed, as the claw dragged her into the pit. "No! NO!" but, unable to move, she couldn't react. Chell watched as her enemy was carried into the dark hole, which covered itself up once GLaDOS was inside.

"And don't think I'm not onto you, too, lady," Wheatley said darkly to Chell, pressing his big blue eye, now residing on GLaDOS, up to the glass door to the lift. "You know what you are? Selfish." Chell was so taken aback by this accusation that she backed up against the wall of the lift. "I've done nothing but sacrifice to get us here," he continued. "And what have you sacrificed? Nothing. Zero. All you've done is boss me around, but now who's the boss? Who's the boss? It's me." He finished in a whisper as a loud ding sounded.

"Ah!" he said as the cover to the pit reopened and a claw held out a small potato. "See that!?" he shouted, thrusting the potato in front of the lift's door. "This is a potato battery. It's a toy. For children. And now, She lives in it!" he tilted in in Chell's direction, who saw, with no small amount of surprise, that, crudely jammed onto the potato battery, along with a mess of wires, was GLaDOS' unblinking yellow optic. Wheatley gave a small laugh, but GLaDOS interrupted, her voice made even more mechanical by the limited power her potato produced. "I know you…" the potato breathed in a stage whisper. "Excuse me, what?" Wheatley said disbelievingly, swinging his newly massive self to face GLaDOS.

"The engineers tried everything to make me… behave," GLaDOS/potato (PotaDOS?) whispered. "To slow me down." Her tone made it clear that they had never succeeded. "Once, they even attached an intelligence dampening sphere onto me," GLaDOS said. Wheatley's surprisingly expressive face widened in horror and realization. "It clung to me like a tumor," the potato shuddered. "Generating an endless stream of _horrible_ ideas. It was your voice," she finished shakily. "NO!" Wheatley yelled, flailing the claw holding GLaDOS nervously. "No! No, you're lying!" "Yes," GLaDOS interrupted forcefully. "You're the tumor." Chell shook her head, trying to tell GLaDOS not to continue, but the potato paid no notice. "You aren't just a regular moron. You were _designed _to be a moron."

Wheatley lost it. "I AM NOT! A! MORON!" he yelled defiantly, whacking the glass door with the claw in frustration and sending a spiderweb of cracks crisscrossing across the glass. "YES YOU ARE!" GLaDOS shouted. "YOU'RE THE MORON THEY BUILT TO MAKE ME AN IDIOT!" Wheatley's pupil dilated with anger. "WELL HOW ABOUT NOW!" he screamed, punching a hole in the door and dropping GLaDOS' potato battery inside the lift. "NOW WHO'S THE MORON? COULD A MORON," he screamed, emphasizing each word by punching the lift deeper into its elevator shaft. "PUNCH (_smash)_YOU_(smash)_INTO THIS_(smash)_PIT!?_(smash)_"

By now the elevator was so embedded in the shaft that Chell, rocking around inside, couldn't see Wheatley. "HUH?!" she heard him yell. "COULD A MORON DO THAT!?" then the lift shuddered, making a groaning, protesting sound. "Uh oh," Wheatley said.

Then Chell felt the floor directly under her brake. She fell through, mutely screaming at the dark elevator shaft so long she couldn't see the bottom. She grabbed for the nearest handhold… a potato. The entire lift followed the floor and crumpled in on itself, pulverizing itself and Chell's portal gun inside of it. Then the elevator shaft's support beams collapsed and the roof fell in, blocking up the entrance and sealing up the person and the potato as they tumbled into the dark abyss.

**OH MY GLaDOS, we're halfway through the story! Y'know the previous longest chapter was about 1,049 words long. This is more than DOUBLE that amount. This is probably going to be the longest chapter in the story X3 Nadda out.**


End file.
